I guess it all depends on what kinds of academics, nihil. Perhaps I should have specified "social scientists and other academics who deal with contemporary events, as journalists do, and hope to get juicy grants and/or government contracts, etc., etc." Power corrupts, and so does proximity to power....
Let me respond with an illustration from my own experience.
I was (and am) a Certified Scholar myself, PhD, publications, and all, although in the 1990's I was working as a journalist. Now, I had developed an interest in Russia's North Caucasus region (where Chechnya is located), and had travelled there frequently. In 1994, I won a year-long grant from the MacArthur Foundation, to collect materials for a book on the region. There were lots of books in English on the history of the conquest of the Caucasus, but nothing on the contemporary situation there. And there was no interest, either. There were, I can assure you, no more than five scholars in this country who followed developments in the region. I can recall giving a talk shortly before my departure for Chechnya, a very thinly attended one, during which I was asked (with incredulity) -- "Why EVER are you going there?"
Well, while I was there, the Russians sent their tanks in, and on my return to Washington after about three months of war, Lo and Behold! there were conferences on Chechnya & the North Caucasus everywhere, articles in the journals, newly minted "experts" all over the place -- and all spouting the most incredible nonsense! None of this nonsense was based on knowledge of or travel to the region; none of it was even based on having read the local (Chechen) press; and much of it was, quite simply, invented -- or shall we say, "improvised"?? Anything went, in order to be heard saying something on such a fashionable subject!
And needless to say, nobody corrected their errors, because nobody except a few conscientious journalists in the field knew they WERE errors.
I was quite shocked, because up to that point I had assumed, as you do, that all scholars were "wedded to the truth", and to careful pre-publication research as well. Now I entertain no such illusions.
BTW I am not familiar with the special case you cite -- the NEw Yorker case. I am familiar, however, with several other cases, in which reporters had written phony stories, even won prizes for them, yet were found out, dismissed, and disgraced -- not as the result of a court case, but as the result of some sort of peer review..
Your view of journalists -- and editors in particular -- seems unusually jaundiced. In my experience, the biggest problem reporters tend to have with editors is convincing them (the editors) that a particular story is worth doing. Once you get the go-ahead, however, editors won't usually give you any grief with the content of what you write.
Joan |
